Ranar and Di Mon  an unplesant wake up call
by Mokusgirl
Summary: this is an unused scene from a series called the okal rel universe by Lynda Williams. This scene is between the 2 forbidden lovers Di Mon and Ranar. If you enjoy it and want to learn more about the series check out the website at www . okalrel . org


This is an unused scene from a series called the Okal Rel Universe bx Lynda Williams

It was ment to be either the end of the first book or start of the third... if you like it check out the website: .org

A sharp jerk on his foot woke Ranar from a blissfully deep sleep. He sat up blinking at the archaic surroundings of a master bedroom filled with heavy wooden furniture and dark green drapery. At the foot of the bed stood a man with a lean, energetic look dressed in dark green livery and wearing a dueling sword.  
"Wake up, Reetion," the man ordered in English, which was not Ranar's native language although he knew it well enough.  
The man, Ranar remembered, was Di Mon, the 103rd Liege of Monitum and one of the ruling elite of the Sevolite empire. The very one, in fact, which Ranar had come out to meet in the hope of establishing diplomatic relations. The last thing Ranar remembered was falling asleep after making love to Di Mon for the second time and since the rest of the day, before that, had already been one of the most physically demanding of Ranar's life, he did not appreciate being woken for anything short of impending doom.  
"What is it now?" Ranar asked, fuzzily, in English.  
"You were sleeping," Di Mon said as if that were a breech of etiquette.  
Ranar levered his aching young body out of bed. "I thought this was a bedroom," he grumbled.  
"My bedroom," Di Mon said, curtly. "You can't sleep here."  
"Right," Ranar muttered, resigned. Di Mon had made the local prejudice about same-sex relationships all too clear to him before now. It wasn't just an idiotic prejudice. It was a deadly, idiotic prejudice.  
"What do we do now?" Ranar asked, stifling a yawn, as he pulled a borrowed shirt over his light brown skin.  
"We?" Di Mon arched an eyebrow in a decidedly aristocratic manner.  
A buzz of adrenaline burned off the last of Ranar's drowsiness. "Yes, we!" he insisted. "You are not sending me away to be stored, like baggage, until you have the time to decide what to do about me! I am not a Gelack commoner. I am a Reetion. A free man. I am not your chattels and certainly not your — what is it that Vrellish Sevolites call a commoner lover?"  
"Lyka," Di Mon supplied, and shook his head. "And I do not intend to name you lyka." His expression pinched in a distasteful manner. "It is absurd. Nor do have time to take you to my homeworld of Monitum to be 'stored away like baggage'. It is too far. I haven't got time. And it isn't a job I dare to delegate to anyone. No, I'll have to store you away somewhere here, at court, on Gelion."  
Ranar felt a lump rising in his throat and fear in his stomach. "Then I am a prisoner?"  
Di Mon frowned. "That is not how I meant it to sound, brerelo. But I cannot have you falling into the wrong hands. Or getting into trouble. You are as ignorant as you are inquisitive."  
The sting of the blunt insult kept Ranar silent long enough for his stirred emotions settle on the Gelack word brerelo. He recognized it as something that the Gelacks called a naming word, which meant one that defined a relationship, but it was not one of the many words that a Gelack with Vrellish cultural identification, like Di Mon, used for lover — even though there were an impressive array of those.  
"What is ..." Ranar faltered, afraid of the answer, "a brerelo?"  
"Literally, it means: one-I-would-fight-beside." Di Mon shrugged in an attempt to see indifferent. "Take it as a token of my trust," he concluded stonily. "I still ought to kill you."  
"Don't start that again," Ranar said as lightly as he could without the risk of sounding disrespectful. He knew Di Mon considered it his duty to keep his homosexual inclinations secret, even at the cost of murder, but Ranar did not believe Di Mon could hurt him. He ached to hug the alien being in front of him, to ease his suffering, but it was either stiff restraint or wild passion with Di Mon, never something as ordinary and comforting as mere affection.  
Di Mon did not respond to Ranar's dismissal of the summary execution option. Instead, he began to collect small articles of clothing off the floor. Ranar was curious about that because he not yet seen Di Mon perform a single domestic chore. Then he realized his Di Mon did not want one of his servants finding any stray hint of what had passed between them lying around. It caused Ranar a pang even though he knew that to be exposed as homosexual would more than ruin Di Mon himself. It would also harm Di Mon's people — a cause that Ranar could appreciate since Di Mon's Green Vrellish, although still elitist bigots by Reetions standards, at least accepted the equality of commoners and Sevolites on a theoretical level.  
Di Mon was all business when he'd finished his sweep of the room.  
"Come, Reetion," he said, "I will put you back in Ameron's old room. You seemed to be comfortable there, before, and the Mad Gods of Earth know the original owner is not using it!"  
Di Mon managed to make that omission on Ameron's part feel like a personal insult which gave Ranar a queasy feeling. He didn't like it when Di Mon's behavior hinted at supernatural overtones despite his professed skepticism. Ranar wrestled with the urge to interrogate him about what he actually believed, and had to invoke his anthropological training to advise himself to drop it.  
"I think," Ranar said, instead, fully dressed now and feeling his way through the uncharted territory between them, "I would rather go home — little as I relish reality skimming!" The very thought of it gave him a sinking feeling, but he persisted with a sudden, tiny thrill of urgency. "I was sent here to make contact with modern Gelacks, which I've done, and found out that Sevolites are far from legendary. I need to repair my people's misconceptions concerning your empire. To have information and not share it is dishonorable —" He picked a concept he expected Di Mon to identify with easily. " — for Reetions."  
No sooner had he said it than the darkening emotion behind Di Mon's stare warned him he had made a misstep in putting it that way.  
"I mean share information about Sevolites in general, of course," Ranar amended. "That you are bioengineered pilots capable of superhuman feats of reality skimming with a multi-world empire, and not a few isolated pockets of struggling humanity on stations in Killing Reach as we had originally thought." He stopped when he knew he was babbling. "I need to go home," he said, firmly.  
Di Mon unfroze with a sudden inhalation. "No," he said. "I cannot do it right now. Maybe later. When I've filled the throne I have just emptied."  
"Yes, very careless of you, that," Ranar said, dryly.  
There was a pause as Di Mon digested the remark. Then he gave an explosive laugh, quickly stifled, and said, "Damn the gods but I do like you, Reetion."  
"Ranar," Ranar told him. "Will you, at least, call me Ranar?" 


End file.
